I gave up on my topic. Best to let Theo get it all out of his system. He’d get back to the reason for my call in due course.
“So what’s with the psychologist?” I said.
“The school. They recommended a therapist to deal with any anger issues Isaac might have. Three hundred dollars an hour.”
From his end of the phone, kids yelled like they were at a soccer game. I hoped it was a soccer game.
“The deputy chief,” Theo said. The background noise got quieter. “This Gonzales fellow—”
“Delgado,” I said. “His name is Raul Delgado.”
“Whatever. Listen, he’s someone we want to keep an eye on. We want to know about him.”
Theo Goldberg was in the knowing business, as he liked to put it, knowledge being the currency of power in twenty-first-century America.
“Gotcha.”
“Find his missing whatever,” Theo said. “Establish a relationship.”
Another biggie at Goldberg, Finkelman, and Clark. Relationships. The currying of favors. He who has the biggest Rolodex wins.
“That other thing,” Theo said. “You’re gonna take care of that, right?”
“On my way, even as we speak.” I drove past the conspiracy theorists at Dealey Plaza.
Wind noise from the other end of the line. Huffing. Heavy breathing. Footsteps, running. Theo yelled, “Isaac! Put the fucking cat down!”
“You’re busy,” I said. “I’ll let you go.”
He came back on the phone. “Be careful, Jonathan. You’re like the son I never had.”
I was pretty sure we were the same age, in our forties. I didn’t mention this. Instead I said, “What about Isaac?”
But the line was dead.
My assignment from Theo Goldberg this fine spring morning—that “other thing” he’d spoken of—was to facilitate the return of some property that belonged to the United States: a laptop computer. The laptop had been issued to a government contractor who was reluctant to return it.
In Texas, there were two groups of people that you absolutely didn’t screw with, no matter what.
In order of importance, they were 1) Baptists and 2) the Dallas Cowboys.
The computer was in the possession of an ex–Dallas Cowboy named Tommy Joe Culpepper, son of the pastor of the Waco Baptist Church in McLennan County. Tommy Joe’s mother was heir to a Permian Basin oil fortune, to boot.
That’s about as close to royalty as you can get in Texas.
Tommy Joe, who fancied himself an Internet entrepreneur when he wasn’t nailing divorcées at the country club, had an office in a renovated warehouse that housed tech start-ups and IT companies.
The building was on Stemmons Freeway, just on the other side of downtown from the School Book Depository. A few minutes after watching Deputy Chief Raul Delgado saunter away from me down the Grassy Knoll, I parked the Navigator between a Ferrari and a Toyota Prius with a Mister Spock bumper sticker.
I was wearing dark jeans, a black dress shirt, and brown lace-up boots. From the rear of the Lincoln I grabbed a black sport coat and shrugged it on.
Look the part. A saying of Theo’s. I was trying for Internet-savvy investment banker but likely came across as a Silicon Valley dope dealer. Oh well.
Tommy Joe’s office was on the ground floor at the back, a large open area with polished concrete floors and exposed wiring so it looked all techy.
I walked in without knocking and found the Dallas Cowboys’ third-string wide receiver (in 1993) hunched over his desk, tamping a nugget of crystal meth into a pipe.
“Hello, Tommy Joe.” I smiled.
He looked up, mouth agape. He was a big guy, six-three or -four, most of the football muscle having gone to fat. He wore a starched white button-down, a gold Rolex, and the Super Bowl ring he got for sitting on the bench and keeping an eye on Michael Irvin’s cocaine stash.
“My name is Jonathan Cantrell. I’m with the law firm of Goldberg, Finkelman, and Clark.”
“Whuh?” He frowned.
“We represent the government of the United States.”
He put the pipe down.
The room smelled like burnt ammonia, so it was a safe bet that this wasn’t going to be his first hit of the day. Partially packed moving boxes lay scattered about.
“You signed a contract,” I said. “With the Department of Immigration and Customs, remember?”
Several computer-nerd friends of Tommy Joe’s had developed an algorithm to spot likely illegal-alien crossing points. Tommy Joe had formed a company and sold the idea to Uncle Sam. Unfortunately, neither the nerds nor Tommy Joe could deliver. Probably because the algorithms didn’t work out. Too many variables, not enough data points. Who knows? A contributing factor might have been that Tommy Joe was pond scum.
“The laptop,” I said. “The one they provided you. I need it back.”
The computer contained government protocols and encryption data for federal contractors, information to be kept secret and returned upon request.
The Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement had retained my employers to retrieve the laptop after Tommy Joe had ignored their letters and phone calls.
He stood up. “I don’t gotta give nothing back.”
“Yes, you do. Your contract is null and void.”
His nostrils flared with each breath.
“Paragraph two, sub-paragraph C,” I said. “Quote: ‘In the event of this agreement being terminated, all properties provided to the contractor are to be returned forthwith.’ End quote.”
“You know who I am?”
“You’re the big man on campus.” I shook my head. “But they don’t care about any of that in DC.”
Tommy Joe came around the side of his desk, face contorted with rage.
I held up a hand. “Stop.”
He stopped.
“I know what you’re thinking right about now, Tommy Joe.”
He began to hyperventilate. Face purple.
“You’re thinking you’re a badass and there’s no way you’re gonna let some cat like me waltz in here and tell you what to do.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Maybe back in the day you were a badass. Maybe back in the day you could have stopped me.” I lowered my voice, barely above a whisper. “But not today, Tommy Joe.”
He might as well have sent a press release to announce his next move. His right hand clenched and unclenched several times. He finally made a fist, reared back.
“Don’t do it, Tommy Joe. I do not want to hurt you.”
He swung anyway, a roundhouse toward my jaw, the kind of punch that looked impressive in the movies but was totally impractical in real life.
If you see it coming you have oodles of time.
I caught his wrist, yanked it forward and then up behind his back. Then I kicked his feet out from under him and slammed him to the floor, face-first.
He roared like a grizzly bear and bucked against me.
Astride his back, I grabbed his other arm and brought it to meet the first, then cuffed him using a plastic zip tie from my jacket pocket.
“Where is it?” I said.
“Screw you, ass-munch.”
I sighed. Then I twisted one of his ears until he screamed.
“The d-d-desk d-drawer!”
I let go. Dragged Tommy Joe to the wall and rolled him upright with his back pressed against his bound hands, legs spread. Then I walked around the desk and opened the largest of the drawers.
The laptop was there, resting on top of a small plastic bag containing six or seven pencil-eraser-sized chunks of methamphetamine and a pint bottle of vodka.
I dumped the meth into an ashtray, added an ounce or so of vodka, and lit the whole thing on fire with Tommy Joe’s lighter.
“See you around.”
I tucked the laptop under my arm and headed for the door.
“You are fucking toast.” Tommy Joe tried to sound menacing. “I’m gonna hunt you down like a—like a—”
I stopped. “Like a wild dog? A feral pig?”
He didn’t say anything, so I left.
Dallas police headquarters
1981
Raul Delgado, eleven years old, closes his eyes for a moment. He tries to erase the image of blinding light and the thunderclap that seared itself into his brain and left a constant ringing in his ears.
Even with his eyes shut, however, the light and the ringing remain. The only result is that the smell of urine and cigarette smoke becomes stronger.
He’s still wearing the same clothes he had on in the backseat of the police car, the ones he peed in when he became so scared.
When the cop pointed the gun at him.
Right before the huge explosion that changed everything.
He opens his eyes.
The cigarette smell comes from a man in a light-blue, Western-style suit, a Dallas police badge clipped to the jacket pocket. His face is cratered like the pictures of the moon Raul has seen in school.
The man is smoking Pall Malls and drinking coffee. He is also leafing through a folder, which Raul imagines has something to do with himself and his brother, Carlos.
The two of them are alone in a small room. The room is furnished with a metal table and three metal chairs. The walls are brick, painted a pale green. The floor is gray concrete.
The man with the pockmarked face sits across from Raul. He hasn’t spoken other than a gruff hello when he entered a few minutes ago.
Raul rubs his nose with the back of his hand. His face and shirt are still speckled with blood. Raul can’t quite figure out why. He knows he isn’t hurt, not cut anywhere. He’s pretty sure the two cops who were in the front seat, the red-haired one with the gun and his bald friend, weren’t hurt either.
Therefore the blood must be from his brother, Carlos.
But that makes no sense.
Carlos is invincible. He is incapable of being hurt. If only he will show up, he’ll put all this to rest.
The cop closes the file. He lights another Pall Mall and blows a plume of smoke across the table.
“How many times you been arrested, Rah-ool?”
The cop’s accent is thick, like his mouth is full of marbles.
He is the kind of man Raul’s mother has warned him to avoid, a redneck who doesn’t like Mexicans or Negroes. To Raul, he represents a slice of Texas that is exotic and vaguely dangerous, like prison rodeos and chicken-fried steak.
Raul shakes his head, unable to form words. He wants to talk, to tell the man that he’s never been arrested. That was his brother, Carlos, and then only a couple of times.
The man taps his Pall Mall into an ashtray. “You Delgado boys cut a wide swath across Mex-Town, I’ll give you that.”
Raul wishes he could speak. He needs to tell the officer it was all just for fun. Just for something to do.
“A couple of real Pancho-fucking-Villas,” the cop says. “You and your brother.”
Words finally come.
“No. You don’t understand—” Raul is shaking his head, eyes welling with tears.
“Don’t sass me, Rah-ool.” The cop stabs out his cigarette. “Don’t ever do that, you hear me?”
Raul swallows the lump in his throat. Quits shaking his head.
“A couple of armed robberies on Maple Avenue, liquor stores,” the cop says. “We’re gonna need you to tell us about those, all right?”
Raul doesn’t speak. His mind races, breath comes in gasps.
He and Carlos have never robbed a liquor store. They grabbed money from the cash register at 7-Eleven, stole coins from the car wash. Never anything with a gun. Never.
The cop arches an eyebrow. “Cat got your tongue, Rah-ool?”
Raul shakes his head. Then he remembers what the man said about sassing him. So he stops. If only Carlos would arrive. He could explain everything. He is good with words. And with people.
Raul swallows several times, works up the nerve to speak again.
“Where is my brother?” His voice is ragged. “He can help you.”
The cop stares at him, face blank. He pulls a Pall Mall from the pack. Sticks the cigarette in his mouth but doesn’t light it.
There is only one way into the room, a door by the cop. From the other side of the door, over the ringing in his ears, Raul hears raised voices, people arguing. Then, footsteps followed by silence.
The cop looks at the door for a moment. He drops his cigarette on the table and grabs a briefcase off the floor like he is in a hurry. He opens the case and pulls out a plastic bag containing a revolver.
The weapon has a short barrel and is battered, the wooden grips chipped, the metal dotted with bits of rust that remind Raul of the cop’s scarred face.
“This here’s your gun, right?” The cop drops the sack on the table. It makes a loud thud.
“No-no-no.” Raul shakes his head, no longer worried about sassing. “We never touch guns.”
The cop takes a drink of coffee but doesn’t speak.
“Where is my brother?” Raul is crying now. “He will tell you. We never use guns.”
“Damn, boy.” The cop scratches his chin. “They puttin’ stupid sauce on your tamale or what?”
“Please. Just ask Carlos.” Raul wipes his cheek. Smeared blood stains his hand.
The cop opens the sack, drops the gun on the table.
“Don’t worry,” the cop says. “It’s unloaded.”
Raul stares at the weapon.
“This is a Smith and Wesson.” The cop points to the revolver. “The one you and your brother used when y’all robbed them liquor stores.”
Raul feels his stomach churn. The room looks like it’s growing smaller.
“Maybe you could pick it up,” the cop says. “That might jog your memory.”
Raul doesn’t move.
“G’on.” The cop points to the weapon again. “Put it in your hand.”
For some reason—maybe it’s the officer’s tone or the smallness of the room or the fact that his brother is nowhere to be seen—Raul is more fearful now than when he was in the back of the police car.
He shakes his head. Tears stream down his cheeks.
“I need you to pick up the fucking gun, Rah-ool.” The cop stands. “You don’t want to make me mad.”
Raul crosses his arms, hugs himself, head shaking.
The cop walks around the table, fists clenched.
Raul is trying to make himself small, when the door is flung open and a man in a blue uniform steps into the room.
“What in the hell is going on in here?” He looks at the cop with the pockmarked face.
The cop doesn’t say anything.
“Is that a gun on the table?” The man in the uniform points to the battered revolver. “You brought a firearm into an interview room?”
“I’m in the middle of questioning a suspect.” Pockmark points to the door. “Why don’t you give us a little privacy until we’re done?”
“The hell you say. A suspect?”
No one speaks. The feeling in the room is tense, but Raul is relieved to see the man in the uniform.
He is in his forties, with lots of ribbons and badges on his shirt. His hair is cut short like an army man. His Texas accent isn’t as thick as Pockmark’s.
More important, his eyes are not like those of the man with the scarred face. They are angry now, but they also appear to have a hint of kindness, of concern.
The man with the pockmarked face has eyes like a dead fish. Empty but scary, all at the same time.
“You’re done now.” The uniformed officer points to the door. “Get out.”
<
br /> Pockmark, with his dead eyes, stares at the officer for a moment. Then he says, “My boys ain’t gonna take the fall for this.”
“One of your boys shot an unarmed juvenile.” The uniformed officer shakes his head. “There’s gonna be hell to pay for that, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”
- CHAPTER FOUR -
I parked the Navigator in a gravel lot, underneath a billboard advertising discount lap-band surgery.
Cop bars. What an interesting concept.
Angry people with guns and badges, drinking.
One of the main watering holes for the Dallas PD was an ugly concrete building a few blocks down from the county jail. It was on a street that used to be named Industrial Boulevard but was now called Riverfront Drive in an effort to spur redevelopment of ugly concrete buildings.
Sam Browne’s sat between a strip joint that featured dollar drink specials and a place called Jimmy’s Bail Bonds and Title Loans.
The rebuilding push wasn’t working so well on this section of Riverfront/Industrial.
Sixty minutes after Deputy Chief Raul Delgado disappeared down the Grassy Knoll, I pushed open the door to Sam Browne’s and stepped into a narrow room that stunk of cigarettes and pine disinfectant.
Smoking is illegal in restaurants and taverns in Dallas, but hey, what are you gonna do, call the police?
I carried Tommy Joe’s laptop in one hand. It wouldn’t do to get it stolen from my SUV. Theo Goldberg would probably have an aneurism.
The bar was at the back, presided over by a cop whose real name nobody remembered since he’d opened a bar called Sam Browne’s. Now everyone called him Sam.
The place had a couple of pool tables with some booths along one wall, tables in the middle, and a jukebox by the front. The decor was a combination of sports memorabilia and pictures of John Wayne being a Real American. The big-screen TV by the door was tuned to a rodeo, bull riding.
I let my eyes adjust to the darkness after the noon sun outside.
Maybe ten customers. A group of exceptionally fit men with long hair and beards—the narcs. Three or four uniformed cops at the bar, working on shots and beers, their faces flushed and veiny.
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